Good Sports

Integrity of baseball

Apr 05, 2005

Perhaps only in the U.S. would the “integrity of baseball” or any sport be the focus of political speeches and front-page newspaper articles. Surveying the massive press coverage of the congressional hearings March 17 on steroid use in Major League Baseball, Representative Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wondered why issues of health care and poverty don’t receive the same attention. Still, Sanders was quite happy to join other members of Congress in questioning some star players and in scolding officials for ignoring the use of performance-enhancing drugs. He understands that precisely because baseball and other sports have an outsized role in this country, the ethos of sports matters a great deal.